


Counting the Cost

by Tyellas



Series: History is hard to know [8]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Exposition, Friendship, Furiosa as a warlord how's that working out for her, Gen, Introspection, Mentions of Max, happy healthy Citadel, mentions of Corpus, slow and meditative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 17:57:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6530200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/pseuds/Tyellas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after the Treadmill lets her back up, Capable shares the Tell of the Fury Road with a happier, healthier Citadel. But Furiosa is paying a price, Max’s absence is a worry, and an old man feels the weight of History.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counting the Cost

It was Capable’s night.

The Wasteland sky arched still and clear over the Citadel, and the dome that had been the Vault. The stars were perfectly aligned, shining in the same winter array they had held an oldyear ago. The night when the Wives and Furiosa slipped from that Vault, to escape the Immortan the next day.

Capable had chosen this time and place to share her creation: the Tell of the Fury Road. And the Citadel had come eagerly to hear.

The History Man was among them. That year past, he had watched Furiosa’s rig leave from the dust of the Citadel’s base, as one of the Wretched. Three days later, he’d seen them return to claim the Citadel. Tonight, draped in dignified Citadel cotton, he tucked himself to one side of the Vault, said hello to a student here and there. Mostly, he watched as the new, blended Citadel streamed by him. It had been a long day, and the old man was tired.

Children had continued what the Rig returnees had started. From the ground, the History Man had seen War Pups flock to help one daring skinny Wretch throw the lever to bring the women back up. Now, Wretched children and Citadel pups were hard to tell apart. White Citadel clay was neglected, or painted into stripes and patterns, blending with Wretched ochre. They ran and laughed and squabbled together. Just Citadel children, now…

Adolescents and young people were crowding this Tell. Change hadn’t been so easy for them. The War Boys had had Valhalla snatched away. Breeders in waiting found themselves, suddenly, not the valued things they’d been raised to be. The young Wretched the History Man had wedged into the Citadel had endured some bullying and doubts. The Sisters’ deft, kindly attentions seemed to have smoothed it all over. Now, they were so entwined in their new world that History hardly saw most of them …

The Citadel’s adults? The Wretched, freed from strictures that condemned them to live like refugees, worked or wandered. More than a few had dug into the base of the Citadel, building real abodes. Others tracked faded roads. To the Bullet Farm or Gastown, to the Rock Riders, roaming the Powder Lakes and the Broken Coast, trying the mad Bartertown trek or retracing the Fury Road. It was amazing what people would do when they could choose. Offer them a patch of earth, or a few gallons of clean water for the journey.  Give them choices. Then watch them take root, or fly…

The Citadel’s old guard remained: _wordburger: problematic_. Some were survivors self-centered beyond good and evil, for whom a new boss was the same as an old boss. The Ace, Furiosa’s second, was kept busy managing dissent amongst the War Boys and other useful thugs, like the Treadmill guards. Then, there was Corpus Collosus, the surviving son of the Immortan. With the mind of a man in the body of a child, Corpus had turned his formidable intellect to the Citadel’s infrastructure. He was the only former Citadel leader remaining, an invaluable repository of deep knowledge, a tenuous ally, a well of possible vengeance…

The History Man was a piece in the new Citadel’s complex game. He had been within the Citadel for an hour when the Sisters declared his main calling: keeping an eye on Corpus. In the Before-time, the History Man had been, briefly, Alan Matheison, Prof. Geoscience at ECU Perth. After the Fall, he had become the tribesman of their lamented, beloved History Woman. And he had been brought up into the Citadel by a road warrior named Max. Imperator Furiosa had declared that if Max had trusted him, they could, too…

The throng parted as the Sisters progressed through, each holding a kerosene lantern, silver metal and warm white light. Cheedo came first, dark and perfect as the night sky. The Dag walked beside her, moon-pale, balancing her chirky infant in a sling. After these visionary beauties, Toast was compact, pragmatic, holding her lantern like it could explode. Capable had halted her long-legged stride to keep pace with Toast. She turned from side to side with smiles and small touches, engaging with all around her. They were doing brilliantly, considering that they never came to the Vault at all, if they could help it. They didn't say why. History knew why they didn't. He hoped that having the Tell there would open the cleanest, safest spot in the Wasteland to them again.

History noted Imperator Furiosa slipping in late. She halted in the shadows near the Vault’s entrance. Just in time: Citadel drummers began to thrum.

Toast and Cheedo placed their lanterns, and the Dag’s, at Capable’s feet. Capable was left as the center of the Tell. The drummers cut out, leaving Capable in a pool of light and silence.

“This is the Tell of the Fury Road. I am Capable of the Sisters. I bring this to you on the oldyear after the Citadel became free. But it’s the Tell of us all, for all our days, for all of us to retell. Hear and remember!”

This Tell springing from Capable’s story, it began inside the Vault, with Wives’ fear, their frustration, their determination. According to Capable, the strength and charisma the Sisters embodied now, the example they made by supporting each other, could be credited to their perished sister, Angharad. Angharad the Splendid, who had embraced the History Woman, taken her teachings and run with them to freedom by winning over their dire guard – Imperator Furiosa.

Capable made it sound as if Furiosa had befriended them in an instant, inspired them with her toughness, begun plotting to spirit them to a Green Place immediately. The History Woman’s journal told a different tale: a remote, shell-shocked warrior, slow to engage, an enigma until Furiosa’s last moments in the Vault.  She had been a raider, an Imperator, one of the apocalypse’s killers. The kind who destroyed people like him. Now? History glanced over at Furiosa to see how Capable’s words sat with her.

Wearily. Like she missed the chair she’d sat in when she guarded the Vault. The past six months of Citadel had called for a Warlord, first to vy with Gastown, then to raid against surviving, rebelling War Boys poised to attack. Furiosa had survived Gastown, and the raid to cut short the War Boys had been a bloody success. Ironically, supporting Furiosa as the new Citadel’s new Warlord led him to see the humanity in her. Six months battling two types of treachery, and the compromises of victory, had taken their toll. Tonight, he was seeing the same shell-shocked face the History Woman had witnessed.

Capable had come to Max’s introduction. She described his epic fight with Furiosa in the sand, then Max’s attempt to flee, only to be outwitted by Furiosa. That was Max all over. Max emerged as a hero in the next parts of the Tell, and History was glad to hear it. He liked the bloke.  Max had hauled him up, out of the Wretched mob, and he’d gotten an idea of the man while the Citadel digested the pair of them. Max had fled the next dawn, but he still checked in on History when his Wasteland circuit looped in. He never put into words that he was pleased to save a talkative old man from the Wasteland; just dipped his chin, crumpled his blue eyes, and let History go on.  

And how had History rewarded him? By putting forth a theory that sent Max out scouting for the Citadel, with five months’ supplies. If there was a scrap of a green place left out there, Max was the wanderer to find it.

Max had been gone seven months and counting.  

Capable’s voice was slowing, growing rough. She was recounting two terrible deaths: that of Angharad and of Miss Giddy, the History Woman.

At the time, the History Woman had vanished, hauled out with the Immortan’s convoy, never heard from again. The recent raid had a few cowed survivors surrendering, offering news at long last. For her silence about the Wives, the History Woman had been tormented by the Organic Mechanic, hauled forth as a bad example by Rictus, then left to perish cruelly in the Wasteland sun, beside the corpse of Angharad.  

_Wordburger: martyrdom._

The Citadel had already deified her, along with Angharad. The story set the seal of blood on it. History listened desperately to this part of the Tell for an echo of his tribeswoman, of Sophia Giddy.  She was often exasperated, always dignified, quick-thinking, the one who’d moved forwards. The one who had started the whole History People thing. The last lady of the apocalypse. His friend…

In the Tell, only the wise goddess remained.

History realised he hadn’t listened much to a long section about the War Boy who’d helped them. It would be told again later. The War Boys were one of the most enduring parts of the old Citadel. He tuned back in to Max’s revolutionary return, the furious road war journey back. Furiosa’s triumph and revenge, Max’s sacrifice of blood to her veins.

At last, Capable described Max throwing the Immortan’s body down from the Gigahorse, trying to make this sound noble and considered. Enthused hollers brought the Tell to a halt for a moment. The History Man mustered a half-smile. Nice try, Capable: but the Wasteland would remember it forever as the Imperator feeding the Immortan to the Wretched. There were stories as they were, as their tellers tried to spin them, and what people craved.

History did join those shushing the crowd to let Capable finish. When quiet fell, her solitary voice was clear and even.

“When the Immortan was gone…the Citadel spoke. All of you spoke. What did you say?” She opened her arms.

The children screamed. “Let them up! Let them up! Let them up!”

The drummers rolled over until they hushed. Capable declared, “And you did. You ended the Fury Road. As the Milking Mothers sent the water down, you brought us up. You brought us home.”

“Home…home…home…” As the children murmured, Capable reached down, lifted a lantern high. Her red hair caught the light in a brilliant crown.

“Tonight the Tell is complete. Hear and remember!”

The drums rolled for her, ending with a final bang, like the slam of a door on the past.

Afterwards, Capable was swamped. Toast stood beside her, stern and fond, occasionally rubbing the arm she had begun to tattoo with her own History. Cheedo and the Dag both embraced their Sister. Others spiralled around: War boy admirers, Milking Mothers past and current, the four surviving Vuvalini, former Wretched and warmongers in a joyous chaos. The drummers started back up. Children ran wild, falling into and out of the Vault’s little pool, leaving wet footprints everywhere, hammering on the piano. Capable went over and managed to direct them just so, gentling them while encouraging them.

The History Man began to start forwards, but stopped. She didn’t need a hand, this strong young woman who had launched the future. Of all the Sisters, Capable embodied the History Woman the most: gentle and firm, with a foundation of dignity learned from other women, weaving the Citadel together. Into a home.

Corpus and his minders had never shown at the Tell. Should History be wherever Corpus was, instead? Their endless battle of wits exhausted him. The tragedy of it was that he and Corpus had the same motivation: keeping it all going. What they could do now, against the decades of destruction, felt pathetic. Teach the children, encourage the older ones to think, track the climate, watch the aquifer being sipped down. So little and so very, very late against the avalanche of history.

Survivor’s instinct set the back of History’s neck prickling. He turned. Furiosa was close to the Vault’s entrance – where, once, she had stood guard. Her eyes caught the lantern light to flash hard and vivid, like the Wasteland sky. Seeing the desert in her face, the History Man glanced away, hastily.

Civilization compelled him to clear his throat before speaking. Before he could proffer the weak compassion of, _you should go up, Imperator_ , Furiosa had gone. He sighed.

As much as the Citadel tried to find their loved and lost History Woman in him, the History Man knew himself different. Sophia would have found the right words, said them in time. He felt the loss of the History Woman like a hot-zone wind at his back, heavy metal in the heart. To harp on it would contaminate the Citadel’s new, fragile health. He would have to find his own peace about it.

He drifted over to the great Vault window, where Sophia had looked down during her long captivity. He had been their tribe’s lookout, and he could still see the Wretched’s new foundations below in the moonlight – but also a blood fight circle, gathering around a bonfire. And there, on the southern horizon, was the red flare of Gastown, sending out its haze of corruption. As persistently old-world, Before-time, as he was.

Two War Boys came up to the window, too. One said to the other, “That was chrome! The Capable’s got the wordburgers, all right.” The History Woman had always winced at his “wordburger” linguistic concept _.  For heaven’s sake, Al, leave the humanities to me. Please._ Then everyone else got it wrong. A wordburger wasn’t a book, wasn’t a story or a Tell. It was supposed to be a word or phrase from the Before-time that had grown obscure after the Fall. But wordburgers would be wordburgers… 

Now the War Boys were gesturing to the Gastown flame. The History Man realized he knew them. One was Corpus’ regular driver, who muttered, “I did the Rig run today. Gastown is going psychotic for a race of races.”

The other one, a Citadel latecomer named Treads, groaned. “Fukushima. Would’ve been so chrome to see that.”

“Too right! They said every steel-real V8 rolling the Wasteland is going to be there.”

History found himself half-smiling again at the irrepressible life of the younger men. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. It used to be a bogan’s birthright, to go up to the big smoke, get on the piss and run the V8s. Back when there’d been an Australia.  

There’d been another race, too, that used to stop a nation. He remembered the last one, the month before the final Fall, at the university in Perth. He’d known Sophia then, through her flatmate. Being from Melbourne, she had thrown a Melbourne Cup party. It had been a desperate success, everyone in crisp suits and sleek dresses, drinking and smoking away the dire global news. Someone had said, “Bloody fabulous, Soph, make this a thing, a Race party every year, promise?”

She’d raised her glass (strawberry Lindauer, terrible stuff) and said, “If I’m not with my sister in Melbs, I promise.”

For forty-three years after the Fall, she’d remembered. Usually she left it at a wry comment. Last time she’d noted it was Melbourne Cup Day, they’d been the History People. They’d raced Wretched maggots, laughing at the distance of the past, the terrifying absurdity of the present.

Sophia was _dead_ –

When the stab of grief and memory faded, the Vault’s crowd was thinning. The War Boys remained. Their low conversation was a guzzoline haze of race speculations.

With that, History knew what he needed to do. All that was required was the right time and place, and a few glasses of terrible stuff.

The History Man glanced at the War Boys. He cleared his throat. A year after the Immortan’s death, they still turned obediently to an old man’s voice. No matter what he might ask.

The next day, he’d think to himself: _Wordburger:_ _And so my troubles began…_

**Author's Note:**

> The Melbourne Cup really does bring Melbourne and much of the rest of Australia to a stop. It's a formal day off in Melbourne and in much of Victoria province (i.e., the state that contains Melbourne.) For US readers, think the Superbowl with horses, watched in formal cocktail gear, with two countries hanging on to hear the results.
> 
> Lindauer – Inexpensive sparkling wine. It could be worse. Could be Yellowglen!
> 
> The History Man presents his theory in [A Handful of Dust](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4456166). Miss Giddy's diary is available to read in [Weave a Circle](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4229832).


End file.
